Linda Vista Branch Library

The Pasadena Public Library has kits for your book club to check out. Each kit includes study questions and materials for getting the most out of the book your group is reading, plus 12-15 copies of the book. Anyone with a library card can check out a kit. Go to the search page at the library's website and search "words in the subject/kits."

I shouldn't tell you this because the number of kits is limited and I want them to be available to my book group. When I checked the website last night there were 38 kits, down from 39 a couple of weeks ago when I was searching for a kit for my group. 39 might seem like enough, but the fiction always seems to go first. I couldn't get what I wanted. To my horror, I was forced to check out a memoir.

Damn if it didn't turn out to be fantastic. (The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls.)

And damn if that isn't what a book club is for--opening your eyes to something you weren't looking for.

I expanded my library horizons, too. I usually go to the Central Library but the kit I wanted happened to be at the Linda Vista Branch. I'd never been there before. Now I know a new quiet spot to work. I don't know where the coffee is (there's got to be coffee) but isn't the children's area cute? That furniture takes me back.